The Journey's of Shroker is a blog about all sorts of topics. Ranging from mundane everyday things to technology, gizmo's to sports, recreational events. Included my recent treks into paintballing again.
As this blog is taking a new turn I will be updating various topics. Same content with a different overlay plus some new ones.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

I should note that the magazines I am using is an older gen 19 round magazine for both MILSIG and RAP4.
Since the release of the MILSIG Paradigm Pro’s new magazine system, the square head collars, many people have asked the question “What is the difference between the round collars and the square collars?” “How do they operate from each other? Pros and Cons”. Throughout the years before the Paradigm Pro square head magazines were introduced it is frequent that people did not really have a clear understanding what the differences are between the RAP4 magazines and the MILSIG magazines. At most people knew they are interchangeable and compatible with each others markers. Thus the question is, what really separates the three magazines in terms of operation mechanics. I will start with the new MILSIG Paradigm Pro. The current square head magazines is designed for the Paradigm Pro What is new about the square head collar is the head is constructed from polymer. The only metal parts is collar detent and the spring that holds the detent bar up. The MILSIG square head collar replaces the ball bearing round collar system. There is a bar that runs lengthwise across the farther side of the opening with both ends of the bar protruding out the sides of collar body a little bit. When the magazine is inserted into the magwell; there is a little ramp within that will push the bar down as the magazine is inserted. The balls than are clear to enter the chamber without being hindered by anything.

In comparison to the round head feedneck collars; the round collars uses 3 ball bearings to hold the balls in place. When the collar is depressed it creates room for the ball bears to “roll back”. With the spring pushing the paintball rounds upwards , the paintballs squeeze through and then is chambered by the bolt. The problem with the ball bearing design is shooting low to mid-grade paintball or paintball that have not been storaged properly. These are the paintballs that are oblong, dimpled or a shape that is not spherical. The problem is non-uniform paintballs get stuck in the ball bearings which leads to either a misfeed or a ball chop.

The RAP4 magazine uses 6 ball bearings as opposed to the MILSIG’s 3 ball bearing collar. However, the RAP4 ball bearings are smaller than the MILSIG ball bearings and this leads to problems with smaller paintballs. In my personal experience when storing the magazines upside down (feedneck facing downwards) smaller paintballs in the 0.679 caliber region will roll out past the ball bearings. This is the main difference I have discovered between the MILSIG and the RAP4 round collar feedneck and can lead to problems for some users. The RAP4 has a shorter collar clip and the MILSIG round feed neck has a taller collar clip.

I hope this helps clear up some confusion between the differences in the magazines. I often hear people wonder what the differences are between the RAP4 and the MILSIG magazines and excluding the internal mechanics, physical differences of the winder and what not, the feedneck ball bearings is the biggest difference.

In the next article I will talk about the MILSIG Paradigm Pro magazine in detail. Stay tuned and thank you for reading!. Visit www.magfedpb.com for more magazine-fed paintball information!

Friday, October 5, 2012

On Friday, 28th of September 2012, I picked up the Paradigm Pro from the MILSIG Canada office. I have been eagerly waiting for this ever since it was announced and after decisions and questions from announcement to release, it is now in my possession.I should note I will be mostly writing this in comparison to my Paradigm 1. The K-Series is roughly the same size give or take.

This passing Saturday I brought it down to my local paintball field, North Shore Paintball where people were anxiously awaiting for me to show them this new toy. My initial impressions when I brought the Paradigm Pro home is the look and feel. The coating is a different from the Paradigm 1 nor the K-Series Mk II. It has a nice texture and feel to it in its own form. The platform has been working out and shedded some weight!. The Paradigm Pro is lighter than the Paradigm 1 and K-Series Mk 1 and features a brand new one piece, 400mm rifled barrel which has been rifled for First Strike rounds and of course, is First Strike round capable! The marker is also equipped with MILSIG’s new spool-valve blow forward internals known as the HEAT core.

Paradigm Pro @ North Shore Paintball , Vancouver, BC

The new square head magazines for the Paradigm Pro is a big improvement over the traditional round magazine heads. The traditional round collar heads have 3 ball bearings that retain the rounds and thus occasionally you could get oblong balls stuck in the bearings. This would result in either a misfeed or a chop. The new square head magazine collar uses a sliding bar so when the magazine enters the chamber; the bar is depressed allowing the rounds to be fed and chambered. This eliminates (I would hope so) a lot of misfeed issues. The user does not have to worry as much about oblong shaped balls getting stuck during feeding.The Paradigm Pro features a nice egro grip handle and a smooth trigger pull. Although I think in the future having a switch safety will be pretty wicked. That just complicates the mechanical aspect of it. The trigger has a small amount of slack giving you ample amount of space to get to the razors edge and then a smooth pull to the rear to fire.The weight of the Paradigm Pro has been reduced. I don’t have the exact numbers yet but reciever of the Paradigm Pro vrs the Paradigm 1 is noticable and feels ligther and more versatile. Not having that steel hammer in the action group probably helped reduced the weight too.

In the next part I will write about the magazines, the operations, advantages and disadvantages (that I have found so far, although so far I have not found any negatives yet).I am looking forward to more games with the Paradigm Pro. Overall I am impressed at the overall build. It feels solid, balanced weight and operates quite smoothly. The sound report is also not as loud as the previous K and M series markers and does not blurp when the marker is out of air.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Here it is, everybody. The MILSIG Paradigm
Pro. Although this is belated from the day I actually got it. I have
no had a chance to do a video of it. Slowly starting to get into the whole
video aspect of things.

I am eagerly
waiting for this upcoming weekend to come up so I can play. :) Anyhow; through
the series I will be doing videos of shooting, reloads, dry fire with reloads
and anything else that I can come up with. Magazine overview and the marker
overview itself. Some will be more in-depth and some videos will be just a
video of me doing something.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

In the next week or two. I am hoping to get some posts up. I will be putting out the first part of MILSIG's new flagship marker, the Paradigm Pro. I also will be writing my little adventure into modifying my Musical Fidelity X-Can V2. Literally not having ever learned how to solder it was quite an adventure. I know eh, someone who loves electronics and loves building stuff as much as I do, I have never learnt how to use a solder nor solder anything. Never got the chance. Least to say, it went pretty well. I did a lot of reading, videos and asked my friends for advice and help. The overall result went smoothly and I did not end up with any cold joints!

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About Me

I am currently a student studying Computer Science and Engineering at Simon Fraser Univiersity in lovely, British Columbia. I live in Vancouver, BC and enjoy my time studying, computers, electronics, paintball and many other hobbies and activities!